"I can see by your eyes you must be lying, when you think I don't have a clue. Baby you're crazy if you think that you can fool me, because I've seen that movie too."
Elton John
"Maybe it's time we stop deconstructing things and start putting them back together."
Alan Moore
"Wise men talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because they have to say something."
Plato
And the geek shall inherit the earth. A combination of a pair the massive nerd-TV lords who've rapidly been overtaking Hollywood,Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon and Cloverfieldscribe Drew Godard from J.J. Abrams's Bad Robot school, Cabin the Woods arrives after much publicity. A film that's been sitting on a shelf for a couple of years following the fallout of MGM, Hollywood's once mighty megabucks studio, Cabin the Woods was finally picked up by Lionsgate, and is at least in a multiplex near you for horror fans ready for a blast-of-fun bloodbath. Cabin in the Woods isn't a bad film, and for a certain fanboy, there's undeniable fun to be had. But I for one can't help but feel I'm outgrowing Joss Whedon. This might've seemed brilliant when I was 16, but these days, I just don't think "clever" is enough.
"You think you know the story?" So the poster proclaims, but of course, you at least partially do. A group of teens fitting into archetypes all head out for a secluded night where there's no cell phone reception, because apparently, even at this point in the 21st century, no one seems to grasp that getting off the grid to a place where you can't call for help is never a good idea. And the jock (Chris Hemsworth), the stoner (Fran Kranz), the dumb blonde (ex-Power Ranger Anna Hutchison), the nice guy (Jesse Williams), and the bookish virgin (well, as virginal as anyone nowadays-more in a minute) (sexy former soap star Kristen Connolly). They go to the cabin, ignoring the warnings of the weird old guy at the gas station who hasn't changed since The Hills Have Eyes, but beneath it, there's a massive organization reminiscent of the one in Buffy's fourth season, led by geek goddess Amy Acker, obviously designed to represent filmmakers, who manipulate the characters to make things play out as they want. In the basement, they find a variety of things from numerous horror subgenres, read out a mystic incantation in Latin, and bo and lehold, evil comes to kill.
Presumably, the idea of seeing cliches slightly subverted while still giving the audience what they want is supposed to be clever, as things play out like Whedon's usual genre mishmashing with everyone dying until the survivors break into the compound and unleash hell in the most literal sense. The last half-hour is a gorehound's paradise, as Whedon and Godard unleash every horror fan's dream of bringing together all of the genre and monsters into an action-packed battle. It's fun, certainly. But is that enough? Film buffs and horror fans have see this all before under numerous titles: Evil Dead II, the woefully unappreciatedWes Craven's New Nightmare, Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Freddy vs. Jason, Shaun of the Dead, Kill Bill, Fright Night, Funny Games, Army of Darkness, Targets, Peeping Tom,Behind the Mask, Shadow of the Vampire, Grindhouse,Videodrome, Body Double, Piranha, and countless others.
Post-modernism has become films about films about films about films about films and culture is now eating itself. At its best, these films off some sort of commentary on the nature of storytelling or the importance of the tales (I'll plug Wes Craven's New Nightmareagain; seriously, see it, it's brilliant.), or find some sort of social commentary like Shaun of the Dead (When Dana sneered "Me? A virgin?" and the Director quipped "We work with what we have." I was hoping for some commentary on changing social mores, but alas, it's just another smart-ass remark.), or at least attempt to do something interesting. But the genre has now been played so thoroughly from every possible angle that Whedon is just adding a new coat of paint, and his brand of smart-ass glibness is less subversive than it is simply smug and annoying. Yes, Joss, I've heard that joke before. The wording is different, the coat of pain is different, but it's stil the same. Godard certainly has skill behind the camera, but he doesn't quite make it into anything more than a fanboy dream, and his hand isn't deft enough to balance his multiple tones and balls in the air and cohere completely. That's fine, certainly. Cabin in the Woods offers up plenty of fanboy fun to be had, but ultimately the film winds up a bit between the two stools, not quite smart enough to be subversive, and not straightforward enough to just be old-fashioned fun like Dog Soldiers. In the end, the movie's self-satisfied tone, affectionate and satirical, but never quite cutting, doesn't make the pieces into the whole I would have hoped for. Again, that's fine, fun is OK, butThe Cabin in the Woods isn't as clever as it thinks. To Whedon and Godard, even the end of the world is just a big cosmic joke.
